Black Spice (Book 3)

by James R. Sanford

  The whistles and cries rose to a deafening height as a flood of Hariji spearmen poured through the gaps between the houses, their shields held over their heads. It was more than intimidation, Aiyan realized. It was a tactic. No one could hear a shouted command more than a few steps away.

  Blow-darts began to appear in the backs of the Hariji, and in their necks, dropping them by the handful as their bodies went numb. Blowgun men had hidden in the thatch of the rooftops, waiting for them to go past. But ultimately it was a bad idea. There were too many hunters and the ambushers found themselves surrounded. A few of them made it into nearby trees, only to be shot down by Silasese archers. The rest of them died by the spear.

  A battle line was forming at the foot of the central tree. The Manutu would make one sharp stand before going into full retreat. Mahai came running along the catwalk, a coil of rope over one shoulder. Aiyan signaled him to crouch low.

  “I brought you this,” Mahai said, “in case you can’t get down any other way.” He dropped the rope at Aiyan’s feet. “They’re about to push past the big tree. All of us on the skywalk are falling back to a ladder on the north side.”

  Aiyan went to his knees and peered over the edge of the walkway. “Stay here with me. Stay low and keep out of sight.”

  Best not to tell him that they might get a shot at killing Soth Garo. The very thought could betray them. Now Aiyan had to see to himself. He stepped onto the plane of power, seeking concealment for his spirit.

  The battle at the central tree ended as soon as it started, the Manutu retreating behind a skirmish line. Then Aiyan saw him — Soth Garo — standing in the open ground next to a lone house that lay below, only a few of his death guards around him. They no longer wore their skull headpieces; they had Baskillian pot helms and carried shiny flintlock muskets.

  A dozen captured Manutu squatted in an animal pen, a handful of Hariji on guard. Soth Garo had a pair of his Baskillians each bring a prisoner over to him. He went into the house, and the guards followed, shoving the two men ahead of them.

  Aiyan could guess what would happen. Soth Garo wanted to slip a spy into the ranks of the Manutu hunters before they could get away. He would kill the first man to convince the second one to take his blood.

  The thatch on the rooftop lay torn by the ambushers who had sprung from there earlier. Aiyan could almost see through a hole in it. Then it came to him. If he could know the place and the moment exactly. . .

  “Mahai, use the rope and climb down. Stay behind this tree so they don’t see you. As soon as you hit the ground, run into that house swinging.”

  Mahai gave him a look. “What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be there ahead of you.”

  Mahai eyes widened as he guessed Aiyan’s plan, but he said nothing and started down the rope. Aiyan rose to his feet. To take his enemy unawares, he would have to do it at this very moment.

  He leapt off the walkway, drawing Ivestris across the flame even as he jumped.

  The thatch hardly slowed him as he slammed boot-first into something hard and solid — it was Soth Garo himself. They went down together in a pile, Aiyan immediately rolling to his feet, a little surprised that he hadn’t broken a leg. Soth Garo kipped to his feet at once, none the worse for having Aiyan land on him. As he drew a two-handed sword over his shoulder, Aiyan cut him across the chest with the flaming blade.

  His skin was made of ice. The blow cracked the surface, sending a spray of icy splinters across the room. Aiyan cut again in an arc of blue fire, sidestepping to place Soth Garo between himself and a guard who was cocking his musket. Chunks of ice fell from the wound, but no black blood, and Aiyan had to throw himself to the side to avoid an overhand slash that would have chopped him in half.

  One of the death guards had dropped his musket and drawn his sabre, but the other guard blocked his way. There was a sickening thud, and he fell to the floor with a broken head. Mahai stood over him with his war club.

  The guard with the musket panicked, firing from the hip as he spun toward Mahai. It was a wild shot, but it cut a bloody crease across Mahai’s forehead, stunning him and knocking him back through the doorway. The musket man pursued him, turning the weapon around so he could strike with the butt.

  Soth Garo wielded his huge sword in one hand, point flicking from side to side in tiny semicircles like it was nothing more than a foil. He feinted and thrust, and thrust again. Aiyan moved in as he parried, raking the flaming blade against Soth Garo’s ribs as he tried to slide behind him.

  Fast as a snake, Soth Garo punched him in the chest with his free hand, knocking half the wind out of him and driving him into the corner. It quickly became a fight of survival for Aiyan as he realized he couldn’t win, and might not even get away. While he parried and dodged Soth Garo, he ran his sword through the thatch and set the roof on fire. Soth Garo doubled his attacks, ignoring any counter-strikes, and Aiyan found himself pressed against the wall. The roof slats began to hiss as they burst into flame, and bits of fiery thatch rained down. Soth Garo would cut him down if he disengaged even for a moment, so Aiyan decided to stand his ground and see who melted first.

  One of the Manutu prisoners lay sprawled at the far side of the room, his neck broken, but the other man was still alive. He crawled to the unfired musket that the first guard had dropped. Surprisingly, he knew how to use it. He pulled the hammer back to full cock and shouldered the weapon. Soth Garo must have felt some sort of threat at the last moment, because he pulled away and glanced back at him. The man fired at once, the ball catching Soth Garo square on the jaw. He wavered for a second, and then the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks and flaming embers.

  “Run!” Aiyan called to the Manutu as he cut a diagonal rip in the rattan wall. He slipped through it in an instant, and was up the rope to the walkway in seconds, hidden by the smoke from the burning house.

  He looked for Mahai and found him. He was unconscious, his head and torso smeared with blood. Several Hariji were hauling him to the pen of captives. There was nothing for it now — Soth Garo had made it out, and he was calling for his death guards as he scanned the village.

  Aiyan sprinted for the north end of the skywalk where the Manutu still held the ladder. He never should have asked Mahai to help him. He knew better than that. But he had been so sure that he would kill Soth Garo and end this war on the spot. Had he allowed himself to become arrogant? No, he would have succeeded except for that damned bewitched skin.

  The shock of that began to set in. Master Bortolamae had told him that there was nothing named that could not be cut by the flaming blade. So the skin of ice must be a nameless thing, something from the ancient evil buried in the depths of the earth. He wondered if his masters would know how to fight Soth Garo. The Mokkalan sorcerers didn’t seem to.

  A shudder went through him, but he was not afraid. He thought about the final night of his candidacy on Esaiya, before he cut the arrow and received his sword. He remembered sitting in the grove of silence, listening in that terrible dark and meeting the vision of his death. He felt that circle closing now, and he wondered if he would soon meet his death again in the flesh. Cold, frozen, impenetrable flesh.

  Sometime after midnight, Kyric felt the world tilt. He dreamed that Odminx stood at the steering oar and that the ocean curved until it went straight up. And when they sailed into the curve, the sea remained flat and it was the Aerth that tilted.

  Nothing seemed changed when Yanah woke him. It was the same starry sky, the same sunrise, and he relaxed, knowing that it had been a common dream and he had not gone to the dreamlands. But then again, isn’t this how it had always felt when he had dreamed with Rolirra? And didn’t the horizon behind them look like . . . he blinked and shook his head. No, it was the same endless sea.

  The morning wore on, and at one point he found that he had locked eyes with Caleem without meaning to do it. Without knowing why, he decided to speak bluntly with him.

  “How are you planning t
o kill yourself?” he asked.

  Caleem looked surprised. “I’m not. Why do you say that?”

  It was Kyric’s turn to be surprised. Caleem wasn’t lying.

  “I just expected it.”

  “If you have taken the black blood,” Caleem said, “then you know how complicated it can be. I love my lord, but I still love my family. I would not want to cause them undue pain.”

  “Are you saying that when we get to the island and you face having your love for your master ripped away, you will not want to end your life instead?”

  Caleem held his hand out for the water skin. “Even if we find an island in these waters, even if it is this island of the fountain, it will have no power over me. You do not understand. Nothing can change the love I have for him — he is the son of a god.” His brow darkened. “I never should have listened to you in the cassia forest.”

  So he didn’t believe anything could restore him, Kyric thought. This could be useful.

  “Are you willing to prove your conviction? Will you go with me to this fountain and drink from it, and not try to escape or harm anyone?”

  Caleem looked at him coolly. “I offer you a bargain, a wager if you will. I will submit to this, but when it fails and we return to Mokkala, you shall go to Lord Frostheart and take his blood. Swear by that which you hold sacred and so will I.”

  Kyric didn’t say anything and Caleem smiled through his cracked lips. What if Ubtarune and Jascenda were wrong? He remembered what Rolirra had said about the wisdom of oaths.

  Caleem returned the water skin. As Kyric took it, the cap popped off and a jet of water spurted from it, like a fountain. That may not be a sign from the Powers, but I’m going to take it as one, he thought.

  “I swear by the Unknowable Forces.”

  Caleem nodded. “I swear by the black blood.”

  They came to the island in the night. Even under the glow of a sinking moon, no one had sighted it from afar. One moment they were on the ocean, the next they were approaching a quiet lagoon. A steep volcanic peak towered darkly over the shoreline, and they heard the whisper of water flowing into the sea.

  They landed the boat on a beach of black sand. Kyric took a lantern from the mast and asked Jascenda, “Are you ready to go?”

  She shook her head. “Only those who seek the purity of the fountain may set foot on this island.”

  “I hear running water. Is it from the fountain?”

  She nodded patiently. “The fountain is the place where all water springs.”

  Kyric blinked into the darkness. Much of this place already felt like the dreamlands, and now Jascenda had to say something like that. The sky was the opposite of the place where all water flows. The stars were far too few for a perfectly clear night. But these people weren’t dreamers, so how could that be? Maybe the dream began with their first step onto the island.

  They all stared at him. Everyone’s faces had become terribly windburned, and they watched him from behind dry, hard masks. Yanah untied Caleem. Kyric turned to go.

  “You can take that lantern,” Jascenda said, “but you won’t like what you see with it.”

  They stepped out of the boat and onto the black beach. Kyric made Caleem walk ahead of him. They found a cascading stream nearby, running down in a series of pools, and followed it through a forest of delicate crystalline structures. They had long, branching arms, twisted at odd angles, pointed and sharp edged. The ground rose as the two of them went forward. They were already on the mountain.

  Kyric held the lantern up and found that Jascenda had been right. Everything was black. The crystals, the stone underfoot, even the water in the stream, all without color. He blew out the lantern and left it behind.

  They climbed in the meager starlight, feeling their way up the mountain. The darkness pressed close. Kyric felt it pushing him down.

  “I cannot go on,” Caleem said. “I cannot tell which way is up.”

  “Follow the water. Here, I will go first.”

  They broke out of the crystalline forest, the slope steepening and the water running faster as they climbed. After a time, Kyric could see another stream beyond the one they followed, and yet another in the opposite direction.

  And then they were at the summit, standing on a rim of solid crystal. It held a pool in a natural bowl, no wider than the skip of a stone. Water bubbled up violently, overflowing the caldera and running down the mountain in a dozen branching streams.

  The night sky quickly faded to grey and then blue. Rays of light arced towards them as the sun breached the horizon. They stood in the golden light.

  “We must drink,” Kyric said.

  Caleem looked uncertain. “You first.”

  “Now that the moment is at hand, do you find that your convictions are not what you thought?”

  Kyric felt the moment when Caleem changed his mind. He reached for his sword as Caleem lunged at him, clearly intending to push him off the mountain, but he was far too late. All he could do was duck and hope that Caleem would fly over.

  But Caleem landed right on top of him, grappling like a wrestler, still trying to throw him down the mountain. Kyric twisted and got an arm around his head. He leaned to one side, threatening to roll them both off the summit. When Caleem pulled back, trying to regain his balance, Kyric heaved and they flipped over together, rolling into the fountain.

  Caleem held on, still struggling furiously, trying to get a grip on Kyric’s throat. The current surging from below buffeted them against the side of the pool, and Kyric found footing on a ledge below the rim. From there he easily placed Caleem in an arm bar and pinned him against the edge.

  Caleem raised his head, spitting at Kyric. “There. I have swallowed some of this water. It has changed nothing.”

  “You have to drink from this fountain. And you must do so willingly.” Kyric twisted his arm a little and then let him go with a shove. “You have sworn! You will not go back on your oath, not in this place.”

  Perhaps Caleem figured he had nothing to lose. He bowed to drink from the pool, and Kyric drank with him. He had imagined that he would feel a burning fire running through his veins, or something like that. But there was no feeling.

  Only a sound. A vibration, a gentle hum amplified by all the crystal trees. A harmony from when time itself was new. The song of two worlds that touch at one point.

  Kyric didn’t have to ask, and he didn’t have to test Caleem. He felt it in the core of his own heart. He was free of the black blood.

  Caleem climbed from the pool, throwing himself down on the rim of the summit. He sobbed as a man who has had every dream broken, every sacred belief taken away.

  Kyric went to him and laid a gentle hand on his head. “This is only the pain of becoming who you truly are.”

  “That’s not the worst of it.”

  “I know.”

  “He used my spirit, and my willingness to love so that my life would serve a lie.”

  Kyric nodded. “I know. That’s what they do.”

  “How can you live with the memory of such a violation?”

  Kyric raised him up. “Look around you.”

  The sun had risen, and its full radiance struck the mountain. The forest of crystals sparkled in a thousand glowing colors, splitting each beam into a hundred more. The streams running from the fountain shone with their own light.

  They wandered down the mountain in silence, lost in its brilliance. It was overwhelming. At one point Kyric was so dazzled that he walked right into one of the crystalline structures. He twisted away, a sharp stab to his shoulder. A long crystal sliver, the size of his little finger, had broken off when he stumbled into the tree. When he drew it out, there was no blood.

  “Are you wounded?” Caleem asked.

  “Not really. It doesn’t hurt.” He held the shard up to the sunlight, the colors within it shifting. “I don’t know what this means, but since it was left in my body I’ll take it as mine to keep.” He tucked it into his sash, wondering if it would st
ill be there once they sailed away.

  The sun sank as they descended, more and more the lower they went, at last disappearing into the sea. Night fell once again as they crossed the beach of black sand. Behind them, the mountain still glowed. Kyric looked at the piece of crystal in his sash. It glowed as well.

  “I have no words to thank you,” Caleem said as they climbed aboard. “For as long as I breathe, you will be my brother.”

  The swell of the ocean rocked the boat gently as they set sail. The island quickly grew distant, and when it had faded away, clouds of stars appeared in the sky above them. Jascenda sang — not her wind song, but a haunting melody that softened the night. No one slept, and they watched the constellations turn circles around them, as if they rested on the axis of the world. The sea pulsed luminescent as strange lights passed beneath the boat. A mist gathered around them.

  When at last the sun began to rise, they all opened their eyes and wondered if the long night had been a dream. Then the mist parted, and Mokkala lay before them.

  CHAPTER 10: In the Den of Evil

  “Absolutely not,” Aiyan said. “We cannot risk it for one man, not even for Mahai. With any luck, he’ll survive until I kill Soth Garo.”

  Kyric tried to pace back and forth, but the guest house was only four strides long. “You said that he was unconscious, that he had been shot and who knows what else. It’s only been three days. Soth Garo won’t start on Mahai until he’s well enough to know what’s happening to him. And besides, Mahai would let them kill him before he took the black blood — you know that. If we do not rescue him, they will surely torture him to death.”

  Aiyan sat on the edge of his sleeping platform and rested his chin on one fist. “Is there something personal between the two of you that I don’t know about?”

  “Not especially. I like him, and would be proud to call him a friend. And he certainly has the way about him — the first time he walked into the room you could see that.” Kyric made himself stand still and look at Aiyan. If it was Aiyan’s fault that Mahai had been captured, he would show no guilt or remorse. He never apologized for a mistake.